Excerpted from “Virtual Foreplay: Making Your Online Relationship a Real-Life Success”
by Eve Eschner Hogan, M.A.
One of the benefits of online dating is that it helps us to recognize that we have a lot of options. We can choose to be passive and wait for people to contact us. We can choose to be assertive and send an inquiry to a person that intrigues us. We can choose to delete a message or respond. We can choose to take what someone says seriously, or personally, or explore it more deeply, or simply ignore it. We not only have choices about whom we date or marry, but we also have the choice of how we behave and the quality that we bring to our relationships.
Responsibility is Powerful
The good news is that choice is very powerful. The bad news—at least to some—is that choice requires responsibility. Personally, I like taking responsibility for myself and my life. I like knowing that if I don’t like something, I can respond to it in a new way and create a new situation. I like knowing that I am the author of my life and if I bring in a character that is a villain, I can “write” that person out or change the way that I interact with that person minimizing their impact on me. If I don’t have enough love in my life, I can choose to be more loving. There is tremendous freedom in embracing that responsibility.
That we have choices seems so obvious, but so often we get into difficult situations and rather than recognizing that we can make choices that change what is happening in our lives, we get stuck. We get stuck when we think that what needs to change is the other person, or the situation, rather than our response to the other person or the events in our lives.
Dishing It Out
The Internet offers us a degree of ease in decision making. The good news about this is that we are getting better at determining what we will and won’t put up with and what we want and don’t want in a relationship. The bad news is that because we are not face to face with the people we are talking to, often we don’t have to deal with the consequences of our choices. If we don’t write back to someone, or if we simply break up or say mean things via email, we don’t have to handle their hurt. We can simply delete any further messages from them. This separation from the impact of our words and behavior on other people can cause us to disassociate from our responsibility for our actions. We need to be conscious about our choices and aware of the impact that we have on others—even if we can’t see them.
Look at All the Skills You Have Gained!
As we become more practiced, via the Internet, in making choices about what we want, defining our comfort zones and establishing our boundaries, we can then bring those same skills into our every day, face to face, relationships. Imagine a world in which people are able to clearly articulate what they need and how they are feeling, let someone know when their feelings are hurt and clear it up right away, or stop a relationship immediately if it is not in alignment with their values. People are hungry for honest, clear communication. We are tired of the confusion of playing games, following arbitrary rules and trying to second-guess what someone else is thinking. By becoming aware of the skills we are developing on the Internet and consciously applying them in the rest of our lives, we can make huge strides in creating healthier relationships.
What have you learned about yourself by interacting with others online?
This question is far more powerful than it first appears. No book or teacher can instill lessons upon you like you can learn yourself by taking a moment to self-reflect and pay attention to your own life experiences. Without taking that moment, however, you may not even realize the benefits you are gaining.
